April 10, 2005
Weekend update: Other things found this week:
This week compiles two weeks' worth of stuff but the week before last was sparse.
As the selection of a new Pope goes on, some links to resources: Vatican/Pope links from Religionlink; More Pope links from Poynter's Al Tomkins; Pope links from Poynter's David Shedden; BeliefNet.
Some interesting blogs: Dream of Italy blog has news about travel in Rome, closings, housing, etc.; The Pope Blog, We Want a Black Pope.

More links....

Reference:

More new World Trade Center investigation reports from NIST.

Latest figures on economic effect of 9/11 attacks in 2001 from GAO.

Foreign Dissertations database, searchable, from Center for Research Libraries.

School Matters, a new database from Standard & Poor's, has lots of info on students' performance by state down to individual district/school.

Efficiency and Safety of Electronic Stun Devices, report from Potomac Institute.
Governments, Politics:

Lobby Watch: from Center for Public Integrity, includes databases of organizations and spending.

2005 Congressional Pig Book reveals waste in spending.

Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project UF's Brechner Center carries the Freedom of Information campaign to the people. Great summaries of laws in all 50 states, as well as access info.

WMD.Gov: just the URL is scary.
Statistics:

UN Economic Commission for Europe and North America databases: economic stats, including by country.
Tools:

EVDB Events Database, still new (in Beta) so just a sample of its potential, but there are already 3 pages of Miami events.....

Factbites: a new search engine that finds just useful explanatory encyclopedia-type articles on a topic. Very nice. (Via InfoToday's Newslinks.)

World Wind from NASA, is a new satellite imaging database software that lets you 'fly' over terrain around the world. (Similar to FIU's Terrafly?). A World Wind Wiki has tips and samples of screenshots from users.

YaGoHooGle: interesting concept puts the two searches next to each other: like this one, for Miami Herald.
Journalism:

Current TV the new cable/satellite channel from Al Gore et al.
Business:

Outdoor Advertising: creative library, database of advertising images back to 1995, with link to a library of much older images at Duke library.

Hospital Compare: new service from HHS gives data on individual hospitals.

Lawyers and Settlements has a database of class action and personal injury suits.
People:

Ziggs.com is a new professionals search finding info on company execs from Websites, like Zoom Info.

Zaba Search: A free 'for now' people finder search engine that some claim is quite accurate.
Public Records:

How to Conduct a Background Check, two part instruction sheet from Virtual Chase legal research newsletter.
Florida:

Florida History & Heritage Collection from library at FSU, has lots of original historical documents, scanned and viewable in image format.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Web browser forensics: interesting article in Security Focus on how they do it.

The 26th Parallel, a new blog from Miami.

Fun/Entertaining:

Smithsonian Global Sound: downloadable music from the Folklife collection, 99c per song.